Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month, — that the year was of indefinite promise before, but that, after the first intense heats, we postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year, and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year.
Last evening it was much cooler, and I heard a decided fall sound of crickets.
- Partridges begin to go off in packs.
- Lark still sings, and robin.
- Small sparrows still heard.
- Kingbird lively.
- Veery and wood thrush (?) not very lately, nor oven-bird.
- Red-eye and chewink common.
- Night-warbler and evergreen-forest note not lately.
- Cherry-bird common.
- Turtle dove seen.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 28, 1854
Partridges begin to go off in packs. See July 25, 1854 ("I now start some packs of partridges, old and young, going off together without mewing.") See also note to August 24, 1855 ("Scare up a pack of grouse”)
. . . the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year. See July 26, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!");August 18, 1853 ("What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now, — as if the rest of the year were down-hill . . . “); August 5, 1854 ( ". . . long declivity from midsummer to winter”).
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